Learn My Lesson
by andersex
Summary: If you strike the match, you're bound to feel the flame. P-1x22 John is dead, Stefan is broody, Jeremy is undead and Damon is being...nice? Elena struggles to deal with her new realities as everything around her begins to change and an old friend returns


Summary: Post 1x22

Elena walked into the house and shut the door quietly behind her, not wanting to wake Jenna or Jeremy. It was shortly after midnight and she knew that she would have some explaining to do, and she didn't want to have to explain to Jenna that she'd spent the last two hours at Stefan's doing…

Well, doing things.

She felt her face heating up as she made her way down the hall and into the kitchen, things falling out of her arms as she took in the sight before her. Her uncle, who was technically her birth father, was lying on the floor. She gagged and ran from the room, falling into the bathroom downstairs where she proceeded to throw up everything in her system. The image of him lying there on the floor in a pile of blood, the same blood that ran through her veins, chilled her to the bone. She wasn't sure when she'd started crying, but she couldn't stop as she sat there, rocking back and forth. She heard a flourish of footsteps and looked up through red rimmed eyes as Damon burst into the bathroom, kneeling in front of her.

"Elena? Was it something I did?"

She looked at him in confusion, unable to stop crying long enough to tell him what was wrong, but it didn't matter because he sniffed the air and took off. She assumed that he smelt the blood and went to investigate so she painstakingly pushed herself up off of the floor and proceeded to stagger out of the room and into the kitchen. She leaned against the edge of the doorframe with her head held high, staring at the ceiling tiles above her head. She had never liked John Gilbert all that much, so why did her heart hurt with just the thought of him?

_Because he was the last living biological parent you had. _Her conscience pointed out, as tears began to pool in her eyes again. She bit her lip and pushed back the pain, deciding that it would be better to figure out who had done it then to dwell on the fact that it had happened.

"What do you think happened?" She asked quietly, wondering who had managed to catch John off-guard enough to kill him.

"I can't be sure. With the tomb vampires torched, there aren't that many people who would want this guy dead. Present company excluded." He turned and gave her a smirk, but she could tell that it was everything he could do to maintain it. He looked physically and mentally drained, and if he had been human she would have questioned whether or not he was going to be able to remain conscious.

"I have to call Stefan." She said weakly, rummaging through her pockets to withdraw her phone. As she dialed the number she could have sworn that a flash of disappointment crossed Damon's face but she ignored it and focused on the matter at hand.

They had to figure out who had killed John, before they killed anyone else.

"Elena?"

Elena looked up from her place on the couch and felt the tears welling up again as her boyfriend Stefan Salvatore entered the room. Stefan was everything that Damon wasn't; he was brave, bold, courageous, heroic, and caring. _Damon cares about you too. _She pushed all thoughts of Damon out of her head and embraced her boyfriend, sighing as his arms enveloped her. She rested her head on his chest and took a few deep breaths, knowing that things were going to get a lot more hectic.

Like the day hadn't been crazy enough, what with Damon almost dying and Stefan rescuing him from the flames.

"Damon?"

"In here."

Elena didn't follow them into the kitchen and was quite content to stay seated in the arm chair, until she heard a scream from upstairs. She jumped off the chair and scrambled up the stairs, following the noise of the scream up to Jeremy's bedroom. She cautiously crept up on the door and swung it open, falling to her knees as she took in the scene before her.

"Jeremy!"

Jenna was standing over Jeremy's pale body and he looked dead, _really_ dead. She covered her mouth with her hand and sobbed into it, unable to tear her eyes away from her brother's still form. Jenna was attempting to perform CPR while dialing 911 and screaming at Elena to help, but she was frozen on the floor. She started to cry even harder then before and was vaguely aware of someone grabbing her and dragging her down the stairs, but she was completely unaware and uncaring as to how it had happened.

She was broken, and this time it would be harder to fix.

"They're ruling it a suicide…but, he has vampire blood in his system. I can smell it on him."

"Damn. He's stupider than I thought he was."

Elena felt herself start to come to as the two shapes pacing before her started to become more clear as they materialized into Damon and Stefan.

"Where's Jeremy?" She cried, sitting up quickly while ignoring the serious dizzy spell she was currently under. Damon gave her a look and she was tempted to hit him before she noticed that her brother's body was lying on the couch, perfect and untouched.

"We think…" Stefan broke up, unable to tell her his theory about her brother.

"We think he's changing." Damon said bluntly, looking her dead in the eye. "since he's incapacitated and she's _incapable_", he said while eyeing a sniveling Jenna with distate, "it's your call."

"What do you mean my call?"

"I mean you decide: we give him more blood and he becomes a vampire, or we stake him and he's done."

"W-what?"

"Elena, Jeremy is _dead_. The question is, do you want to keep him around or do you want to let him die." She let Damon's words sink in and she wondered what Jeremy himself would have picked. She knew that he had been depressed when Vicki died, and would take the news of Anna equally bad, but she couldn't lose him.

She just couldn't.

"Do it." She whispered quietly, looking down at the floor as Stefan and Damon approached the body of her still brother. She heard a tearing sound and a hiss of pain before seeing a drop of blood red liquid hit the ground. Blood red, obviously, seeing as it actually was blood. She resisted the urge to cringe, cry out, run away, or anything else as they waited out the change.

After what seemed like forever, Jeremy finally woke up. His eyes fluttered open and when he saw the vampires standing before him he tried to run away. However, because he'd never tried to use super speed before, they caught him easily and held him down as he fought.

"Elena, call off the dog please." Damon said irritably as Jeremy scraped him with one of his new fangs. If there was one thing Damon hated more than humans, it was new vampires. They were so inexperienced and annoying that it made their existence such a hassle, and it was also the main reason why he tended to destroy them or stake them shortly after turning them, generally.

However, looking at Jeremy, he couldn't help but wonder what Elena would look like as a vampire.

"Let me go." Jeremy growled, pushing against the Salvatore brothers in an attempt to get away. He felt like he hadn't eaten in weeks, and he knew that it was the blood lust that was making him feel that way. It hadn't really clicked in him that when he turned he'd actually have to drink blood, which was kind of disgusting, but now that he couldn't smell it running through his sister's veins he couldn't imagine why any kind of vampire would ever willingly turn it down.

"I can't do that." Stefan said gallantly, pinning him down to the chair. "Not until I can be sure that you aren't going to attack your sister."

"I don't bite." He snapped back, hunger winning out over his anger. "I'm just so _hungry_."

"Yeah, that's the problem." Damon sighed, rolling up his sleeves. "…but we can't let you feed from your sister, so in order to complete the change you're going to have to feed from," he shuddered, "me."

"I don't want to." Jeremy growled out, swiping at Damon's jacket. He frowned and rolled his eyes before slicing his forearm and lowering it towards Jeremy who, despite his protests before, latched onto it. He drank for awhile before Damon pulled back, feeling exhausted and spent. He collapsed into the chair next to Elena and casually wrapped his arms around her, cheering inside when she allowed him to and when she laid her head on his chest.

"Will he be okay?" She asked quietly, ignoring the image of her brother and her boyfriend exchanging blood.

"Probably not."

AN: I don't know if this is good or not, I was just kind of inspired after the finale. Next chapter: Jeremy as a vampire, Damon brings up the kiss, Stefan meets an old friend, and someone dies.


End file.
